Sexual victimization in prisons
According to research conducted by Nancy Wolff and Jing Shi, the extent of physical and sexual victimization in the prison system has become a cause for alarm especially because it is a violation of the victims’ basic human rights. Another issue of concern is that the victimization occurs inside institutions run and funded by the same government tasked with the responsibility of protecting people’s rights and freedoms (Shi & Wolff, 2007). Although preventing sexual victimization is a major obligation for the government and the prison systems, achieving such a task is likely to face a lot of challenges especially due to the nature of environment the victimization occurs in.
To begin with, prisons are stereotyped as places where one is expected to be tough and refrain from reporting other inmates to the guards regardless of what types of actions they engage in (Shi & Wolff, 2007). Whether victim or witness, inmates are likely to withhold all the information needed to understand sexual victimization in prison in order to prevent it. In addition, victims are also less likely to step forward and report the crime and this will make it even more difficult to create a profile of the likely victims therefore making it harder to teach inmates what to avoid so that they do not attract unwanted attention.
The findings from the research raise various policy issues such as the need to help prison systems to come up with placement strategies that will help reduce the likelihood of sexual victimization. For such a venture to be successful, there is also the need to train guards how to identify traits shared by victims of sexual harassment in order to help identify those who are at risk even before they are victimized. Lastly, there is a need to train guards on how to take firm action against sexual predators in prisons. Since they interact the most with inmates, equipping them with the skills and knowledge on how to prevent sexual victimization could help in stopping the victimization once and for all.
References
Shi J and Wolff N, (2007) “Understanding sexual victimization inside prisons: Factors that predict risk” Criminology and Public Policy, retrieved from, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1745-9133.2007.00452.x
